A method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device. A ti layer and a metal layer are successively formed on a semiconductor substrate or on an insulating layer. Then, a wiring pattern including a ti layer pattern and a metal layer pattern is formed by patterning said ti layer and the metal layer. Heat treating is employed under an atmosphere of a compound including nitrogen in order to react an exposed portion of the ti layer pattern to form tin as a main product, thereby increasing the stability and adhesiveness of the metal layer for subsequent processes.
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1. A method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device comprising:
forming a ti layer and a metal layer on a substrate; forming a wiring pattern including a ti layer pattern and a metal layer pattern by patterning said ti layer and said metal layer; forming a metal nitride layer by depositing metal nitride on said wiring pattern; and etching said metal nitride layer to form a metal nitride pattern on exposed side walls of said ti layer pattern and said metal layer pattern.
8. A method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device comprising:
sequentially forming a ti layer, a tin layer and then a metal layer on a substrate; patterning and etching said ti layer, said tin layer and said metal layer to form a wiring pattern that includes a ti layer pattern, a tin layer pattern and a metal layer pattern having exposed sidewalls; and after said ti layer, said tin layer and said metal layer have been patterned and etched to form said wiring pattern, heat treating said wiring pattern, under an atmosphere of a compound including nitrogen, to react the ti of said ti layer and thereby form tin as a main product on the exposed sidewalls of said ti layer pattern.
15. A method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device comprising:
sequentially forming a ti layer, a metal layer and then an SiN layer on a substrate; patterning and etching said ti layer, said metal layer and said SiN layer to form a wiring pattern that includes a ti layer pattern, a metal layer pattern and an SiN layer pattern having exposed sidewalls; and after said ti layer, said metal layer and said SiN layer have been patterned and etched to form said wiring pattern, heat treating said wiring pattern, under an atmosphere of a compound including nitrogen, to react the ti of said ti layer and thereby form tin as a main product on the exposed sidewalls of said ti layer pattern.
4. A method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device comprising:
sequentially forming a ti layer and then a metal layer on a substrate; patterning and etching said ti layer and said metal layer to form a wiring pattern that includes a ti layer pattern and a metal layer pattern having exposed sidewalls; after said ti layer and said metal layer have been patterned and etched to form said wiring pattern, heat treating said wiring pattern, under an atmosphere of a compound including nitrogen, to react the ti of said ti layer and thereby form tin as a main product on the exposed sidewalls of said ti layer pattern; and subsequently forming spacers of insulating material over the sidewalls of said ti layer pattern, constituted by the tin, and of said metal layer pattern.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device, and more particularly, to a method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device which has improved stability and adhesiveness for subsequent processes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Semiconductor devices require high capacity and fast operating speeds to power today's electronic devices. Accordingly, semiconductor device manufacturing methods continually strive to improve the integration density, reliability, and response times of the devices.
However, as the integration density increases and the overall size of the device itself decreases, limitations are encountered. For example, as the critical dimension of the device is reduced to sub-micron size or less in order to increase the integration density, the channel lengths, distances between active regions, sizes of via holes or studs, contact areas between metals, etc. are reduced. This causes various problems, such as short channel effect (SCE) or stability, with regard to a transistor for example. Also, problems concerning resistance, stability, or adhesiveness between layers are generated as the critical dimension of metal patterns is reduced. The stability or adhesiveness of the metal pattern may deteriorate during the implementing processes to form a metal pattern after depositing a metal, or due to an indirect influence of a subsequent process.
The SiN layer 124 is formed by depositing SiN using a low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) method. The LPCVD is a deposition method for forming thin films using a chemical reaction by employing heat energy in a reaction vessel where the pressure is maintained at about 200-700 torr. The LPCVD is performed by heat-treating at about 400-600°C C. with a mixed gas of SiH4 and N2, or a mixed gas of SiH4 and N2O as source gases. With this method, the uniformity and step coverage of the resulting film is good and a large number of wafers can be processed at once.
Referring to
Referring to
The SAC process is briefly explained as follows. Present semiconductor devices have a design rule of 0.15 μm or less, and accordingly, the critical dimension is reduced and contact holes must be formed in even thicker interlayer dielectric layers. As a result, it becomes difficult to maintain the process margins during the formation of the contact hole, and in order to ensure the process margin, spacers are formed on the side walls of the pattern. Essentially, the spacer secures the process margin and is called a shoulder margin.
During the manufacturing process of the metal pattern, the following factors may influence the characteristics of the metal layer.
A defect may be generated by a thermal budget on the metal layer during the spacer forming process after forming the metal pattern. Also, the thermal budget may generate gases from layers surrounding the metal layer, such as an insulating layer. The gases, for example, oxygen, humidity, etc., can function as oxidizing agents and potentially oxidize surrounding exposed metal, especially an exposed portion of the Ti pattern which has a high reactivity. If so, the adhesiveness and the stability of the metal pattern is reduced. If a subsequent metal layer pattern having a strong stress characteristic is formed on the oxidized Ti pattern, a separation of a portion of the Ti layer can be induced if the applied stress is larger than a critical value at an edge portion of the Ti pattern.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, various methods have been suggested. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,310,456 and 5,314,576, both issued to Kadomura, disclose a process for protecting side walls of a metal pattern by using a protecting layer. However, this method costs a great deal, is inefficient, and is difficult to implement in a practical way.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,705,428, issued to Liu et al., discloses a method of forming a nitride layer on side walls of a metal pattern by injecting additional N2 gas during a typical etching process. However, the additional injected N2 gas produces undesirable polymer residues, and the etching efficiency and etching ratio are reduced. Furthermore, a high vacuum environment is required during the etching when utilizing some types of equipment, but the addition of N2 gas deteriorates the etching.
In another method, H2O is added during an ashing process using oxygen to form a metal oxide at an edge portion of the metal layer. However, the oxide compound is not uniformly formed, but is partially formed depending on the type of the metal, the grain sizes of the metal, and the quality of the interface of the metal. Accordingly, the control of the formation of the oxide layer is difficult and sometimes this oxide layer weakens the adhesiveness of the metal.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an advantageous method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device having improved stability and adhesiveness by solving the above-mentioned problems during the manufacturing thereof.
To accomplish this object, a method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device is provided. First, a Ti layer and a metal layer are successively formed on a semiconductor substrate or on an insulating layer. Then, a wiring pattern including a Ti layer pattern and a metal layer pattern is formed by patterning the Ti layer and the metal layer. An exposed portion of the Ti layer pattern forms TiN as a main product by implementing a heat treatment process under an atmosphere of a compound including nitrogen.
There is also provided a method of manufacturing a metal pattern of a semiconductor device including the following steps. A Ti layer and a metal layer are formed on a semiconductor substrate or an insulating layer. Then, a wiring pattern including a Ti layer pattern and a metal layer pattern is formed by patterning the Ti layer and the metal layer. Then, a metal nitride layer is formed by depositing metal nitride on the wiring pattern. A metal nitride pattern is formed on side walls of the Ti layer pattern and the metal layer pattern by etching the metal nitride layer.
In the present invention, an exposed portion of a Ti layer, which has high reactivity and induces various problems while implementing other processes, is treated by a compound including nitrogen in advance to form a nitride layer to protect the Ti layer, and therefore, the various problems associated with the exposed Ti layer can be overcome.
The above object and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent by describing preferred embodiments in detail with reference to the attached drawings in which:
Hereinafter, the present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which preferred embodiments of the present invention are shown.
Referring to
Referring to
As for the metal material for forming the metal layer, tungsten, aluminum, aluminum-copper alloy, aluminum-copper-tungsten alloy, aluminum-scandium alloy, copper, cobalt, gold, silver, molybdenum, etc. can be used. Among them, tungsten is preferably applied because it has a low resistivity and a high melting point, and thus has good chemical vapor deposition characteristics and good step coverage. As for a tungsten source, tungsten hexafluoride (WF6), having a boiling point at room temperature, is preferable to tungsten hexachloride (WCl6), which has a high melting point and is in a solid state at room temperature.
Aluminum itself has a low melting point of 600°C C., and a processing temperature for a mixture of aluminum and silicon is about 577°C C. Therefore, processing at a high temperatures is difficult and voids will likely be generated in the resulting device. But, aluminum is cheaper than tungsten and has a low resistivity, and so a process control using aluminum is advantageous as well. Furthermore, aluminum has good reflow characteristics. Accordingly, aluminum is widely used as the metal material.
In the present invention, various materials can be used as the barrier layer including Ti/metal, such as Ti/TiN/W, Ti/W, Ti/TiN/Al, Ti/Al, etc. Copper has a high diffusion coefficient with respect to silicon oxide and silicon, and thus is not generally used as a barrier layer. For example, if copper is diffused into an insulating layer, the insulating layer becomes conductive thereby reducing the insulating characteristics. However, copper is cheap and has a low resistivity and so efforts continue for ways to successfully employ copper as a barrier layer.
On the metal layer 223, an SiN layer 224 is formed by depositing SiN. The SiN layer 224 is formed by depositing SiN in the presence of a mixed gas of SiH4 and N2, or a mixed gas of SiH4 and N2O, at about 400-600°C C. using an LPCVD method. After that, a photoresist pattern 230 is formed by depositing, exposing and developing a photoresist layer using a typical photolithography process.
With reference to
Note that after forming the patterns, sidewalls of each pattern (i.e., Ti pattern sidewalls 221b, TiN pattern sidewalls 222b, metal layer pattern sidewalls 223b, and SiN pattern sidewalls 224b) are exposed. As shown in
With reference to
The precise parameters of the heat treating process can be modified according to the equipment employed. For example, the heat treating may take a shorter time when RTA equipment is used, because the desired temperature can be reached in a shorter time. Conversely, heat treating takes longer in a furnace because it takes longer to reach the desired temperature. Accordingly, the heat treating condition should be controlled so as to form the TiN layer 221c to a thickness of about 10-500 Å, and more preferably, 10-50 Å on the side walls of the Ti pattern 221a.
After repeated experiments, the present inventors found that the heat treating is preferably implemented by an RTA process under an atmosphere range of about 1×10-10-760 torr, at a temperature range of about 500-750°C C., for about 3-40 seconds. More preferably, the RTA process is implemented under atmospheric pressure at about 650°C C. for about 20 seconds.
After the heat treating, the exposed portion of the Ti layer forms TiN as a main product. Sometimes, however, the presence of oxygen is inevitable in the heat treating environment. TiON can thus be formed as a byproduct of the heat treating under an atmosphere including both nitrogen and oxygen. However, the TiON byproduct does not affect the operation and objectives of the present invention, and thus an additional process to avoid the formation of TiON is not required. However, if an excessive amount of oxygen is supplied, undesirable TiO2 can be formed and so the amount of oxygen should be controlled.
If heat treating is conducted in a furnace, it is preferably performed in the furnace annealing equipment under an atmosphere range of about 1×10-10-760 torr, at a temperature range of about 500-750°C C., for about 40-60 minutes.
With reference to
As a third embodiment of the present invention, a metal nitride layer can be formed on the side walls of the metal pattern after the etching of the metal layer by using the photoresist pattern to prevent a generation of a defect due to an exposed Ti layer. The metal nitride layer is formed by depositing a metal nitride compound at a low temperature to a thickness of about 10-500 Å, and preferably to about 10-50 Å, and then implementing an etch back process until the surface of the substrate is exposed.
More specifically,
With reference to
With reference to
With reference to
According to this embodiment, the metal nitride is additionally deposited and then etched, which increases the complexity of the process. However, this additional nitride layer improves the adhesiveness and stability of the metal pattern. Considering these effects, the more complex process can be readily applied. As for the metal nitride compounds, TiN, WN, and the like can be used. More preferably, the deposition of the metal nitride compounds is implemented under an atmosphere of a compound including nitrogen.
The preferred embodiments of the present invention were explained with reference to the formation of a bit line, in which the metal pattern is formed on a substrate or an insulating layer. However, the metal pattern also can be formed on an interlayer dielectric for an interconnection. In addition, the present invention can be applied to all types of devices including a metal pattern having a barrier layer, for example, a DRAM, SRAM, CMOS, Bi-MOS, MOSFET, etc.
While a nitride layer is formed on an exposed portion of a Ti layer, which has a high reactivity and functions as a protecting layer according to the method of the present invention, it should be understood that the present invention can be applied to other metal layers if the spirit of the present invention is utilized to solve the problems as described herein.
According to the present invention, the decrease in the stability or adhesiveness of a metal pattern, attributed to an indirect influence of a subsequent thermal process, can be overcome and a metal pattern of a semiconductor device having good stability and adhesion qualities can be manufactured.
In addition, since the formation of the nitride layer on side walls of the metal pattern is separately implemented, this process does not affect other processes. Accordingly, the Ti layer can be effectively protected without accompanying side-effects or adverse consequences.
Furthermore, since the heat treating under an atmosphere of a compound including nitrogen is implemented after the etching of the metal pattern and before the subsequent thermal process, the Ti layer which has a high reactivity can be protected. At the same time, the heat treating at a high temperature induces the generation of gas from surrounding layers, such as the insulating layer, to reduce an amount of gas generated during the subsequent thermal process. Therefore, even if ten or more wafers are subjected to the thermal process, a lifting of the metal layer rarely occurs.
While the present invention is described in detail referring to the attached embodiments, various modifications, alternate constructions and equivalents may be employed without departing from the true spirit and scope of the present invention.
Song, Won-Sang, Park, In-Sun, Koo, Kyung-Bum, Kim, Young-Cheon
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